But Don't Tell Anyone
by patsyanddeliadontlikecake
Summary: An apprehensive Patsy visits Delia in Wales. Set after 4.08.
1. Chapter 1

Before

Now they are lying on the grass, looking at the stars. Patsy points out the constellations. Delia closes her eyes and listens to Patsy's soft voice drifting in the quickly retreating summer's heat. They can hear the pulse of the waltz from indoors, the light from the open door a soft glow in the distance. It was getting too hot for them in the hall, the rising heat of bodies stifling the hall's air. The place is grand, almost too grand, for a simple hospital dance and it makes Delia feel slightly incongruous amongst the trickling fountains and landscaped lawns.

"These gardens are beautiful."

"Yes." Patsy replies, her voice distant.

She sits up."You alright? Too many martinis? "

She giggles lightly and glances at Delia."I'm fine. Just thinking."

She would ask: _What are you thinking, darling?_ But she doesn't want to annoy her. And plus, sometimes it's best not to ask.

She lies back down, her heart thumping, and somewhere deep inside aches.

She turns to head to look at Patsy, her wet eyes staring blankly at the sky.

She presses her lips together, the thumping of the band echoing the thumping of her heart. She shuffles towards Patsy, until their bodies are pressed against each other and they can feel the rise and fall of each others breaths. Everything is okay. And then for one blissful moment Patsy turns her head and presses her lips onto her cheek.

Patsy jumps back and clasps her hand to her mouth, searching Delia's face for a reaction. Delia can't do anything, it's like her brain has frozen. All she can do is breathe. She glances back up at Patsy.

"Delia. I-I'm sorry. Please don't. Please. I'll leave now. I'll go."

Strands of her pinned back hair catch the light of the moon creating a halo around her head. Delia wants to comfort her but she doesn't know how. Tentatively, lovingly, she puts her arm around Patsy. Her shoulders shake under her touch. The song from the open doors has come to an end and the chatter increases, mingling with occasional giggles. She doesn't know what Patsy is thinking but she feels a sudden impulse that this is the time.

"I'm the same." Delia whispers softly in her ear.

Patsy glances at her, her eyes wide, and bursts out crying. It is strange, seeing her cry, it almost wants to make Delia cry. She is normally so strong. Delia wraps her arm around Patsy to comfort her. "Oh Pats."

Patsy flinches back again. "Don't Delia." She glances around as Delia's face subtly twists in confusion. "We can't."

"We'll find a way though, won't we? Pats?" She looks up at her, stubbornly optimistic.

Patsy turns to her, her face engraved with the familiar everything-will-be-alright smile she always wore. It reminded Delia of her mum. "Of course Delia. Of course."

After

The green door swings shut behind Delia's mum and for a moment she glimpses Delia through the gap.

Patsy steps in to the room. She clings onto her strength, controlling her breathing, her emotions. Her grip is so strong she fears she'll kill the flowers in her hand.

_How does she manage to look so beautiful, even lying on a hospital? _Patsy wonders. Her eyes are closed and for a second her jumpy heart thinks that maybe they'll never open again. She can feel the sound of her own heart beat raising, so loud it fills her ears, but she does not take her eyes off Delia. She can't.

_You angel._

She settles down on the seat next to Delia, listening to the rise and fall of her breath. She reaches out for Delia's hand, red and swollen from the crash. She wants to hold it, heal it. She wants to heal her. She would give anything. Everything.

Their hands touch and Delia opens her eyes. They focus blurrily on the face in front of her, her ears on the soft voice ringing in the air.

"Pats?" Her dry throat cracks, her words barely audible.

Tears linger at the corner of Patsy's eyes.

"Patsy, darling." A smile forms on Delia's swollen face and Patsy breathes out. She is alright. Everything is alright.

The jolt of the train shakes Patsy awake. She hates the dreams. They confuse her. She never knows if she should like them for making everything better, even if it is for a moment, or hate it for reminding her what could have been but what was not.

It seems she has woken just in time. The weary voice of the conductor echoes down the train corridor, calling out Patsy's stop, the last on the line. There is movement around her but Patsy feels momentarily still, unsure, afraid of what is to come.

_Sometimes you just have to put on a brave face and get on with it._

She lifts down her case from the railings above her head and, following the last stragglers, steps down on to the platform. She holds the letter tight in her hand, refusing to let the gentle evening wind take it from her. The address, written in scrawling hand at the top, is just visible. Her fingers trace the letters that make up her name. _Delia Busby. _Those golden words. How did they manage to end up meaning so much to her?

She finds a map in the centre of the village and walks down the hill, towards the sea. The wind from the bay tastes slightly salty as it brushes her lips, ruffling her lose hair so it streams out behind her. She wants to make an effort, she really does, but it seems like there is no effort left to give.

The bay opens up in front of her, the glowing lights from the houses seeming to warm the cold air. The sea, mysteriously winking and glinting in the fading light, is calm. The sun is just disappearing under the twinkling horizon and the last glimmer of red surrounds it like a halo.

_You angel._

She recalls the path she traced with her finger, turning left into a cobbled road. She can hear low singing the lighted pub in the harbour, drifting through the air.

And then, there it is. The door. It seems oddly daunting, the bronze knocker almost daring her to touch it. She has played this scene out so many times in her head. The good scenarios and the bad ones. Its almost as if she prefers the wait, the imagining. She almost doesn't want to find out what lies inside. What if she is worse?


	2. Chapter 2

Patsy's mum answers the door, her hair scraped into a quick bun. She looks slightly flustered. "Patsy. We were waiting for you."

"Sorry about that, the train was delayed."

There is silence as she leads her into the house. It smells fresh and flowery, just like Delia did.

"How's Delia doing?"

"She's okay. Obviously nothing can be expected quite yet but-"

Patsy's breath catches and she lets out a little hiccup.

"She's upstairs in bed. She's just gone up actually. She was fine this afternoon but she said she felt light headed so I just took her up."

Patsy takes off her jacket, pegs it on to the coat hooks and glances up the stairs. The house is kind of dark. She wasn't sure if it was just the setting sun, or the lack of lights, that made it so. It was different to how she had imagined it. She imagined it to be lighter, like everything happy about Delia squished into a building, but instead it seems to have a melancholy sense of grief.

"She's still quite sensitive." Delia's mum turns to her as she starts up the stairs. "She gets easily upset, especially about things she doesn't remember."

_But does she remember me?_

There are pictures of Delia, and only Delia, lining the stair wall. One of her as a baby, as a toddler sat waist high in the sea, of her reading in a garden, a posed school photograph, and, most recently, her in her nurses outfit, face spread into the beautiful smile that Patsy craved to see.

A light glows from a wedge open door and Delia's mum knocks lightly. "Delia?"

There is no reply so she peers around the side. "Aah Delia! Your awake."

She beckons to Patsy and she is reminded of visiting a patient on the district rounds. It seems wrong, too stiff and formal. She breathes in, out, and straightens herself up again.

Delia is lying in bed, her head propped up with a pillow, her hair not tied back and neat like Patsy had grown so accustomed to, but hangs loosely around her shoulders.

Patsy smiles at her as Delia lifts her head up. She stares intently at Patsy. Her mum picks up a cushion and plumps it up, clearly uncomfortable."It's so nice of Patsy to some and see you in her holiday, isn't it Delia?"

"Yes."

Her expression is one of light confusion, just like it had been when Patsy had to come to see her in the hospital.

"Well, I'll leave you two to catch up." Delia's mum weakly smiles at Patsy as she walks past.

"Hello Delia."

"Hello Patsy."

Delia's Welsh lilt makes Patsy crumble inside.

Patsy wants to go home. She doesn't want to be here, with her, where the reminders of what could have been were so strong. There is no glint in Delia's eye, not fire, no passion. Not like before. This is not her Delia. Just the worn outer shell of her, a stranger she does not know. She clears her throat and blinks back tears. "Pembrokeshire's lovely, isn't it?"

Delia is still looking at her, fragile but curious. "Yes."

There is a pause and Patsy glances at Delia, expectant.

"When it's not raining." She finishes the sentence that she wanted Delia to finish. The sentence that somewhere deep inside her had hoped Delia would finish. She then laughs at her joke, Delia's joke, not because it's funny but because all the hope that had built up inside her is now gone. Her laugh turns into a gentle sob and she hiccups.

"Are you sad?" She looks up at Patsy, her eyes full of concern. Patsy doesn't say anything but looks away, she can't look into Delia's eyes. It makes her ache.

"You're a midwife, aren't you?" She can tell Delia is trying to change the subject.

"Yes I am."

"I think I could be a midwife."

"I think you'd make a better nurse."

"Oh."

There is silence.

"I was a nurse before, wasn't I?"

Patsy glances back up. "Yes. Yes you were. In Poplar. You worked at the London, we met on the male surgical ward-"

"You're very pretty."

Everything in Patsy stops. _Let go. Don't kid yourself._

"Thank you." She smiles. "So are you." She adds.

Delia's torn face twitches into a smile. "Not really."

Patsy cannot get over how differentDelia is.

Delia flinches for a second and raises her hand to her head. Instantly Patsy is alert. "Is your head okay?"

"Yes. Yes. I'm fine."

"Okay. That's good."

Delia looks at the door. "Could you get my mum?"

"Yes, of course I can."

_I can look after you, darling. We don't need your mum._

Still she gets up from the chair next to Delia's bed and starts to trip down the stairs. It is even darker now and the air smells faintly of stale alcohol. Angry whispers radiate from the kitchen.

"How can you be calling me selfish!"

A deep Welsh grumble follows.

"You can't keep doing this. I need your support. Delia needs your support."

A muffled remark.

"Gareth!" Delia's mum exclaims.

The stair Patsy has paused creaks and the kitchen falls silent. Delia's mum, cheeks rosy and flustered, peeks around the door. "You alright dear?"

"Delia wants you."

"Oh." She glances back at the kitchen and starts closing the door. "Okay."

A muffled shout follows her. "Don't bother."

Her eyes flare momentarily. "Sorry, he's just come back from the pub. Just ignore him."

"Alright." Patsy says, unsurely. She lingers on the stairs as Delia's mum trots behind her. Patsy isn't sure whether to go up after her or not. Instead she goes to her luggage, still resting under the coat stand, and busies herself in sorting through the letters from Delia. She reads through them. Before, when she had read them, the voice of Delia was bubbly, funny - like the Delia she used to know. Now she can hear the voice of the distant stranger that wrote them.

The kitchen door opens behind her and Pasty swings around. A large figure stands rests against the door frame. He steps out of the silhouette and into the dim light of the hallway.

"Are you Delia's penpal then?"

"Yes, I'm Patsy." She stands up and holds her hand out for him to shake. "Nice to meet you."

It takes it and shakes firmly, his hand clammy. "You staying at the pub?"

"Yes, I am."

Patsy is finding it uncomfortable.

"The landlords a joke. How can someone being singing too loud? It's a pub for God's sake ."

"Oh."

"There's not much point you staying you know. Delia can't deal with visitors. Can't deal with anything really. I hardly recognize her, you know. It's like they replaced her with this-" He gestures by flinging his hand out. "The only one she really likes is her mother. I do love her. I do. But she doesn't love me. Me, who spent so long sitting by her bed in that godforsaken hospital."

He stops in anger.

"She does love you, Mr Busby."

He just looks at her and laughs.

"Poor little nurse. So naïve and innocent. You don't know what's she's like. How different she is."

"I think I do."

He raised his eyebrows. "What makes you want to come all the way to Pembrokeshire to see her?"

"She is my friend."

"Your friend."

"Yes Mr Busby, my friend." She pauses on the last word, hoping, praying that she is speaking the truth. But the truth is that she doesn't quite know anymore.


End file.
